Not so friendly reminder that musk specifically came up with, and pushed, for hyperloop knowing that it would never be made, as an effort to stop the development of highspeed rail in America and shift all political discussions of it because "something better is around the corner":
As I’ve written in my book, Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it. Several years ago, Musk said that public transit was “a pain in the ass” where you were surrounded by strangers, including possible serial killers, to justify his opposition.
Also: 2024 update, the total length of China's high-speed rail tracks has now reached well over 45,000 km, or 28,000 miles, by the end of 2023.
They are additionally five years ahead of schedule and expect to double the total number within ten years. And, before someone inevitably complains about "how expensive it is", they are turning over a net-profit of over $600M USD a year.
Projects intended for the public good don’t need to be profitable. It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China, nor can you make the assumption that it could be profitable in other markets.
There are a lot of conflicting reports on how profitable HSR is in China, the fact that government and Industry are often one in the same and the lack of good public accounting at Chinese companies makes any reports from HSR advocates out of china questionable. After all they do want to sell their HSR technology globally.
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected and projects need to pass a much higher threshold of review for environmental impact, etc. There are many major infrastructure projects in China that turn out to be poorly planned and executed years after they have been completed.
This is a great, nuanced post. Musk is still an asshat and we should still get HSR but there are a lot of practical reasons it's harder in the US. Part of that is the lobbying of the automobile industry. Obligatory "fuck cars."